In the 1840s and 1850s, the federal government tried to impose the Fugitive Slave Acts of 1793 and 1850 and school segregation through Brown v. Board of Education on the Southern states. It was argued that these measures were unconstitutional and that the states had the inherent power to prevent the federal government from enforcing them within their borders.

In response to the Alien and Sedition Acts in 1798, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison wrote the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, which provide a classic statement in support of states’ rights. Jefferson and Madison declared the Union is a voluntary association of states, and if the federal government violates that voluntary association with unconstitutional laws the states have the right to nullify those laws. The states, they wrote, “are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their general government” and “each party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress.”

Nine states have passed resolutions reaffirming the principles of sovereignty under the Constitution and the 10th Amendment over the last year. The political opportunist Rick Perry exploited this trend last April at an anti-tax rally in Austin when he said Texans might get so fed up with the federal government they would want to leave the union. Democrats and other advocates of federal power over the states had a field day with Perry’s secession comment. “Talk of secession is an attack on our country. It can be nothing else. It is the ultimate anti-American statement,” declared Rep. Jim Dunnam of Waco.

Despite Mr. Dunnam’s contempt, a large number of Texans support the idea of states’ rights and even secession.

CNN and the corporate media have since used Perry’s comment as a lightning rod to portray constitutionalists as racist troglodytes. It is no mistake during the above clip CNN decided to show the consummate politician and opportunist Rick Perry parading around on horse back dressed in cowboy regalia. It underscores the stereotype of the white Southern massa lording over cotton field slaves. It reaffirms the racist narrative and attempts to drive people away from the sovereignty movement.

States’ rights as a not so subtle codeword for racism is now a corporate media talking point. In February, the teleprompter reader Chris Matthews at MSNBC compared Texan political candidate Debra Medina to John Calhoun after she defended the principles of interposition and nullification in response to the encroachments of the federal government.

None of this is accidental. It is imperative that the establishment attack the Constitution and the Bill of Rights if they are going to realize the globalist plan to merge our once proud constitutional republic into a world government. In addition to portraying the Constitution as a racist manifesto, they are attempting to criminalize the Tea Party and take down its political candidates.

Taxes must rise while fiscal stimulus needs to be wound down in order to reduce the U.S. budget deficit and allow private investment to expand, said former Chairman of the Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan on Wednesday.

"I am in favor for the first time in my memory of raising taxes," Greenspan told an audience at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York

He warned that the deficit, swollen by massive stimulus spending, was crowding out capital investment. We "must find a way to simmer down fiscal activism and allow the economy to heal," he said, adding that that stimulus spending had been far less successful than anticipated.

Bush era tax cuts are set to expire at the end of this year. President Obama says he wants to cap taxes on middle and lower income households but allow taxes rates to revert to higher levels for the wealthy.

The issue is key in the forthcoming mid-term elections in November, with the Republicans pushing for tax cuts to remain in place across the board, claiming that higher rates on the wealthy would hamper the recovery.

Greenspan said that the chances the U.S. economy would slide back into recession were receding but warned that "all bets were off" is house prices started to fall further due to high levels of unsold inventory.

Greenspan, who was the head of the Federal Reserve for almost 19 years until he retired in 2006, said new rules to impose capital increases on banks were unlikely to cause a credit crunch as bank rushed to raise capital as some have suggested.

while i do not agree with a papacy per se, i also believe in structure inside the church. i myself have been fired for emotional reasons and later came to realize that i was hired for the same reasons. i like what acts 6 says about choosing leaders. the whole group gets involved. then the apostles prayed, then consecrated them. i suppose that if the group were wrong, the apostles would have got a "veto" in their spirit. maybe if we chose leaders like this today, there would be less and less pastor-cult churches. i like your view darlene. emotional obligation can be such a "pull". stuck in the middle of tax talk and submission to authority in romans 13 is a phrase: "owe no man anything but the debt of love". i like this phrase so much as it has helped me personally with issues of quid-pro-quo in my life. i no longer believe in that pass-time. i believe that if we do, we do freely... and when we love? love fully and freely without any "strings" whether if it is to a congregation or to a spouse.